Flying Buffalo was founded in 1970 by Rick Loomis. Originally Flying Buffalo started as a play-by-mail moderator, buying a computer in 1971 solely to run their various PBM games.
In 1972, Flying Buffalo acquired the license to the Nuclear War Card Game from Doug Malewicki. Nuclear War is one of Flying Buffalo’s best sellers and has gone through a number of editions. In addition to the base game, several spin-off games that are compatible with the base game have been released. Nuclear Escalation, Nuclear Proliferation, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the 50th Anniversary edition have all enjoyed great success. The light-hearted approach to the devastation of nuclear war continues to strike a chord in the marketplace.
In 1975, Flying Buffalo published Tunnels & Trolls, the second oldest fantasy role-playing game. The most popular version of T&T was the 5th edition which was published from 1978 to 2005. Tunnels and Trolls is known for its solo modules which allow players to play without any additional players. To date, Flying Buffalo has made more than thirty solo modules.
In 2012 a new Deluxe edition of T&T was published via a highly successful Kickstarter. Deluxe T&T is backwards compatible with the previous rulesets and scenarios. Flying Buffalo has continued to create new adventures since then for DT&T.
T&T was the first RPG to be published in England and was also popular in Japan. Over the years there have been versions of T&T in Spanish, French, German. Japanese, Polish and Italian
In 1982 Flying Buffalo developed and released Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes (MSPE) created by Michael Stackpole. MSPE is a modern era role-playing game that uses the T&T system. It allows fans to play adventures from the Victorian era of Sherlock Holmes to the modern era of James Bond. The game was reissued in 2019 with an enhanced version. The Stormhaven MSPE GM adventure won the Origins/H.G Wells award for Best RPG Adventure of 1983.
The All-System Catalyst included background materials for fantasy role-playing games, which became the “Catalyst” series. The two main series within the Catalyst line are the Grimtooth Trap books and the CityBooks. Citybook I was the 1982 winner of the HG Wells Best Role-Playing Adventure. Grimtooth’s Traps has seven released volumes and has been a staple of gamer shelves for over 30 years. Various other Catalyst books were also published including, Maps, Treasure Vault, Wilderness Encounters, and Map Pack: City of the Gods.
In August of 2019 Flying Buffalo lost its founder, Rick Loomis, to cancer. He had been running Flying Buffalo for 50 years, Steve Crompton the long-time Art Director of Flying Buffalo took over the day-to-day operations and Rick’s family began to look for a buyer.
In August of 2021 Webbed Sphere Inc, purchased Flying Buffalo and are pushing the company forward into the 21st century with an emphasis on quality products that hold true to the company’s history of excellence.